


Eat the Sun

by ridorana



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Drug Use, M/M, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25151038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ridorana/pseuds/ridorana
Summary: After the events on the Bahamut, Balthier waits for the world to forget his name. Hopefully Vaan does not.Written for BalVaan Week 2020, day one: "Reunited/Dreaming About the Other"
Relationships: Balthier/Vaan (Ivalice Alliance)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 37
Collections: BalVaan Week





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Besin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Besin/gifts).



The air smelled like ice and smoke. Bur Omisace, in the fresh wake of the war’s end, did not look any different to Balthier than the last time he’d been there. Perhaps it was more empty, but the expanse of it had not changed. A sea of tents peppered along the mud and snow, merchants slotted themselves under the arcing crevices of the ravines, and Kiltias patrolled the paths with well-practiced smiles. 

It was really no place for a vacation, but Balthier supposed they weren’t here for that.

They were here for one thing and one thing only: anonymity.

Bahamut had fallen almost a month ago. News of the war’s end spread through Ivalice like wildfire, and Archadia and Rozarria and everywhere between suddenly let go of a breath they’d been holding for nigh over two years. It blew through Ivalice like a sigh, carrying up the holy mountain to tousle Fran’s hair and make Balthier’s leg ache with its chill. 

It was almost as though the world had forgotten what to do with peace. 

From beneath the hood of his cloak, Balthier peered at the expanse of the refugee camp. He remembered all too easily the carnage that stained the snow only months ago by Bergan’s order; bodies cleaved to the ground, air heavy with smoke, and all for what? 

Word of this new peace opened a few vacancies in the camp as those who sought asylum returned to their motherland. Others, left homeless by war’s horrors, stayed. 

Balthier wasn’t sure what to call him and Fran. Refugees? Heroes? Legends? Ghosts?

For the first time in his life, Balthier wanted to be nothing. To hell with titles. He was Balthier, she was Fran, and if anyone asked they were neither. It was simply enough to keep it to themselves.

It wasn’t difficult, surprisingly. The Kiltias asked few questions, damnably kind enough to take everything at face value. So when a hume limped up with a crutch under one arm and a Viera at his side, they welcomed them with nothing but warm tea and fresh food. 

“You’ve come a long way,” a Nu Mou said, though he did not ask from where. “Are you in need of shelter?”

Balthier nodded. “Room for two,” he said, voice flat. “I don’t suppose you’ve one vacant with an ensuite?”

The Nu Mou took pity on him enough to smile. “When you’re settled, we are happy to offer you the hot springs. They are touched by the light of our late Gran Kiltias Anastasis, and you’ll find yourself rejuvenated from the blessing of its holy waters.”

He tilted his head up to regard the sky. It was always gray here. “I suppose that will do.”

His request for some semblance of luxury must have gone somewhat heeded, as the tent he and Fran were assigned was big enough for at least four people. Balthier imagined the previous occupants must have been a family. Remnants of their stay were still strewn about the tent; tiny shoes and wooden toys. Things worth leaving behind for home again.

Fran unloaded the sheets they’d been given, and proceeded to make the beds while Balthier lit a small fire in the camp stove. Together they worked in wordless tandem. He didn’t realize just how long they’d been without their familiar silence until the very strangeness of it caused him to speak.

“Just like old times, eh Fran?”

It sounded hollow on his tongue. Across the tent, Fran’s ear twitched. “It has not been so long.”

“To you, maybe.”

“Did you miss it?”

Balthier blinked. Staring across the refugee tent as his partner, whose ear was cleaved in half by Bahamut’s rubble, without a ship or gil to their name, he had to admit while leaning on his crutch: “This isn’t exactly how I envisioned our return to piracy.”

“We are pirates no more,” she reminded him, gentle but firm. 

“For now.”

“You say, as though it was not your idea.”

“So it was,” Balthier sighed.

And, unfortunately, it was a good one. The statute of limitations for criminals of their tier was held strict at one year. To resurface from the ashes of war so quickly and expect to fly the skies without a bounty was a foolhardy dream. Even with Ashe’s pardon, other countries were not so forgiving. It was in their best interest to keep their heads low. Only then could they truly fly free.

Thus, their year began.

“Will you pick a new name?” she asked later that night. It was surprisingly toasty inside the tent, even with night having fallen over the mountain. Outside, the wind whistled, but it was only a sound.

“I’m tired of names,” Balthier admitted, staring up at the canvas stretched above them.

“Balthier the Nought?”

When he laughed, it was but a simple huff from his chest. “And what does that make you?”

“Your shadow.”

Balthier shifted on the cot - or rather, the two cots that he pushed together into one - and winced. The gap between them made his endeavor fruitless, but he was already in bed, dammit, and it had been a long trek on a chocobo through the ravine today.

“Are your ears cold?” he asked when a particularly strong gust of wind pressed against the tent.

“No.” A pause. “Does your leg hurt?”

“Yes.”

“We will speak with a healer tomorrow. Now sleep, Balthier.”

The mountain was quiet when the wind stilled. All Balthier could hear was the camp stove humming in the corner, burning through the night. His eyes felt heavy, and when he shut them, he knew what he would see - what he saw every night. 

Fire. Steel. Black. Red. 

After Bahamut, dreams eluded Balthier. For the first ten days, they squandered in the blackness of Her fallen corpse, climbing over the dead and compassing through the dark, battered and lost and hungry. Balthier’s shattered ankle, coupled with the pain from Fran’s ear they had to slice half off from being pinned under rubble, hadn’t helped matters. When they finally saw the light of the Estersand, it was for but a moment before they both collapsed. 

Not shortly after did the Garif Wayfarers find them, searching the ruins for survivors. Balthier and Fran were taken to Jahara and were well enough to walk ten days later. Seeking more anonymity than they could find on Garif soil, they set off on chocobo to the holy mountain.

Since war's end, Balthier’s dreams became spectres of terror and pain. They’d rip him from his sleep in a flurry of explosions and death and the memory of Fran’s scream, and when the horrors spat him out he was breathless, drenched in sweat.

Fran, on the other hand, slept deeply. Never had Balthier seen her sleep like this before. It was unnerving, but at least between the two of them someone was getting rest. He predicted tonight would be no different.

He was right.

The next day, Fran set out with two Bangaa to ice-fish for the communal dinner, and Balthier was left to wander the camp. Upon further scrutiny he found that his suspicions rang true; many of the tents were vacant, the wind billowing open the canvas flaps to reveal hollow innards. Unable to help his curiosity, Balthier nosed through a few of them along the way. For the most part, they all were left in the same state: bare cots, washbuckets, and things left behind by those who knew they were headed back to something better. 

He felt like a scavenger.

It wasn’t until Balthier peered in an occupied tent that he found himself stammering an apology. 

“Do not worry, my boy.” The man’s voice was warm and almost eager as he beckoned Balthier back within. “You’re the lad with the viera, aren’t you?”

“Aye,” Balthier answered with a nod. How the man could recognize him beneath his cloak was a mystery, until he realized the damn crutch under his arm was an easy giveaway. 

“You look like you've a few stories under your belt. Won’t you sit and tell my old bones a tale?”

Through the shadow of his cloak, Balthier frowned. “Can’t say I’m in the mood to entertain.” It came out sharper than he intended, and his ears reddened in spite of himself. Quickly he added, “Apologies. I’m not entirely of the mind to be a proper guest. I’ll be going.”

The man tutted and grabbed Balthier’s arm, a gentle grip that stopped him where he was. “If you’re going to wobble around with eyes like the dead, take something for your troubles at least.”

Balthier had to remind himself that here, he was no sky pirate. Here, he was no leading man. Here, he was not Balthier. He was a nameless refugee, with a long year ahead of him. Perhaps it would behoove him to start playing the part. Acquiescing to the role, he allowed the man to lead him further inside and sit him down on a rug. 

“Now, now. You don’t want to tell, I won’t ask you to. But I’ve been here long and I’ve seen many faces just like yours.”

“And what faces might those be?”

Leaning forward, the man scrutinized Balthier. “Take off your hood.”

“I’d rather not.”

“No matter,” he said, palms facing outward in a mock surrender, but he did not seem slighted. “I can see those tired eyes despite it. You look like you haven’t slept in a fortnight. And if I may be so bold, you’re acting like it too. I’d wager a Wooly Gator’s temper more mild than yours.”

Balthier eyed the tent warily. All around him were little wooden boxes and tins, some open and some closed, strewn about the tops of crates. Stray vials of powders and herbs ornamented little shelves, and all at once Balthier realized this man had been here long before any refugee. With an ease, the man moved around the tent, inspecting his own wares as he spoke to Balthier. 

“Tell me what ails you.”

It was a surprisingly loaded question.

“The long or short of it?”

“Up to you, boy.”

With a sigh, Balthier anchored his gaze at a pot bubbling something viscous on the campstove, and his eyes went distant. He decided that all he was capable of giving was the short of it. “I’m tired.”

“Do you sleep?”

“I try. I don’t.” Balthier chose his words carefully, as not to give anything away. “I have nightmares. And the bloody leg doesn’t help matters either.”

The man nodded, completely engrossed in the task of paging through his wares with great haste. Vials tumbled and rolled over the wooden crates until finally he found whatever he was looking for. Balthier watched him hold an ampul of what looked to be herbs up to a lantern, twisting it to and fro with a fond curiosity. 

“Pain of the body and of the mind,” he said, still looking at the vial. “I’ve something for that, oh, I’ve something for that.” 

The old man’s shock-white hair cascaded down his back in coiled dreads and when he looked at Balthier, his eyes crinkled from lines long familiar with his smile. “Now - tell me, you prefer to smoke it or drink it?”

Whatever madness possessed Balthier to entertain the help, he wrote off as morbid curiosity. “Depends on what it is. You’ve yet to mention.”

The man waved a hand dismissively as he rifled through a small box atop some crates. “If I knew, I’d tell you. But it works.”

“You jest.”

“In what little years I have left ahead of me, I try not to look gift chocobos in the mouth. This was a recipe left to me by a wood-witch in Golmore. Now, listen well: you may grind it like so in the mortar, or roll it up in papers to smoke. It takes only a pinch, boy! Either way,” the man paused to drop the vial in Balthier’s hand, “Take it before bed.”

Balthier stared down at his hand. The glass vial was about the length of his middle finger, with a small cork to hold in the herbs. Before he could ask what it was, the man was already shooing him out. 

“I’ve another patient on the way,” he said, a smile in his voice. “But I hope to be seeing you again.”

That night, Balthier steeped a pinch in a small tin cup of hot water. The crutch laid at his feet, and across from him Fran applied ointment to her ear in a tiny mirror. 

“Think it’ll work?” Balthier asked, taking another sniff from the cup.

“I told you thrice: it did not strike me as noxious.”

Nor did the old man, necessarily, but it didn’t hurt to make sure. “Will you have a sip with me?”

“You would have me go along with your every wild whim?”

“Forgive my gross assumption. You only followed me into the Bahamut,” Balthier reminded her.

Fran plucked the cup from his hands and poured half into her own.

Holding up his tin, Balthier winked. “To a life of a nobody.”

Fran met his cup in the middle. “To Balthier the Nought.”

The tea was just right as Balthier brought it to his lips. Not too bitter, not too subtle. It was a nice blend, whatever it was. He sampled it again, bringing the gold rim of the porcelain to his lips. Rose, maybe? 

He peered down at the gilded sprawl of Tsenoble from his vantage point on the balcony. Everything flowed so leisurely on this side of the city. Even the aircabs didn’t seem to have anywhere to be, gliding through the grid of monoliths with ease. It wasn’t as though the people of Tsenoble were lazy, so much as it simply wouldn’t be stylish to show haste. Under the midday sun, Balthier watched Archades with a strange fondness he didn’t ever remember feeling before.

“Do you like it? It's one of those blends from the boutique in Molberry. Not sure what to make of it yet,” the woman across from him said. Balthier peered at her, admiring the charming tilt of her sun hat and the stylish scarf tied around the brim.

Balthier hummed. “Did you see today’s headline?” he asked instead. He didn’t need to see her eyes to know she was rolling them behind her oversized sunglasses. 

“Gods, how could I avoid it? With your father on the front page, shaking hands with those vipers,” she sighed, and fumbled for her cigarette. “That man drives me to smoke. Pretense, all of it. I knew we should have moved to the country. I’ll never know why he plays those games with them.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, mother,” he replied, frowning as she struck a match. “Though I do wish you’d kick the habit.”

“One day you’ll find yourself a spouse that makes you absolutely mad,” she sighed smoke into the air, “and then you’ll not fault me for my vices, Ffamran.”

“Jeez, I sure hope not. Sounds depressing. By the way, his name’s Balthier.” Vaan leaned against the door of the balcony, looking entirely bored and all too comfortable in his fucking house.

Balthier dropped his cup. Neither paid him an ounce of mind.

“We’ve been over this, darling. His name is Ffamran,” his mother insisted, almost fondly.

Vaan’s brow furrowed. “No, it’s not. It’s Balthier. Why do you call him Ffamran? What a stupid name.”

His mother stood with a burst of movement that sent her chair flying off the balcony to the streets below. “How _dare_ you? That name is a tradition in this family.”

“I can see why he changed it then. Balthier sounds way better.”

“Ingrate!” Suddenly, the sun was no more, and thunder rumbled through the black-grey sky. Wind whipped his mother’s sunhat from her head and it flew into the air. Below, everyone in the streets went running as the rain turned to hail. 

Vaan did not seem phased. “His name is _Balthier._ Why don’t you ask him?”

“He has no say in the matter!”

Frozen to his chair, Balthier opened his mouth to find himself without a voice. 

“His name,” a voice that was not his mother’s came from her mouth, ageless and hauntingly ethereal, “is _Ffamran._ Won’t you tell him, Ffamran? Tell him your name. Speak it!” 

Thunder cracked in the distance. Hail had turned to snow, but Vaan was completely dry as he stepped out onto the balcony. 

“ _Balthier,_ ” Vaan sighed, glaring at him. “Don’t let your tea get cold.”

Down in his hands, the shattered teacup was whole again, the dregs of it splattered into a crude but recognizable silhouette of sharp angles and lines that made his blood run cold at the sight of it - _Venat_. 

Balthier woke to the light of the sun glowing through the ceiling. Squinting, he sat up with more effort than he expected, to see Fran across the tent making eggs. 

“What time is it?” Balthier asked, blinking.

“Nearly noon. I sought not to wake you. It has been long since you’ve slept so well.”

It took a while for the rest of the world to come into focus. He sat on his cot and belatedly realized he was without his shirt. Peering under the sheets pooled around his waist, he also found himself missing pants as well. 

“Fran,” Balthier said, bewildered, “I had the strangest dream.”

Balthier floated through the rest of the day like a spectre in a familiar haunt. The sleep left him groggy, but the encampment never had a shortage of coffee. He filled his tin cup with it once, twice, three times. By the fourth, he’d gotten used to the grit, and decided to find the hot springs. 

Traditionally, the Omisace hot springs were reserved only for the Kiltias, having been carved out hundreds of years ago upon settlement of the mountain. It was only when they opened their grounds to refugees did they, in turn, open their springs. 

Balthier found that, sacred though they were, he felt miles away from anything holy when he sunk his naked body neck-deep in the spring - but he did feel a hell of a lot better. The Kiltias certainly had a mind to hoard this to themselves, lest it become a new Archadian tourist attraction. 

It wasn’t his first time here, though. No, he remembered it swiftly as soon as his eyes slipped shut and the water enveloped him in a deep, hot embrace. Behind the blackness of his lids, Balthier recalled the memory: 

It was after the defeat of Bergan. Ashe and Basch went off to speak with Al-Cid, voices low. Penelo and Fran were still making their way through the wreckage to find survivors. And Vaan was across from him, in this very hot spring, looking wrung out to hell and back. It was of little wonder why; being one of the only white mages there at the time of the attack, Vaan immediately put himself to work. Balthier remembered standing beside him as a line formed, mothers and fathers weeping as they carried their bleeding children to his side in hopes Vaan could heal them.

They were there for hours. It wasn’t until a particularly ambitious Curaga nearly caused Vaan to vomit that Balthier put a stop to the entire thing lest it ail him further. He all but had to drag Vaan away from the crowd; he was no savior for them to drain dry, but they did anyway. Vaan had nothing left to give. The Kiltias, having seen his work, directed them both to the hot springs for Vaan to recuperate. It had just been them, alone, right where Balthier was now. 

The day had tested even him of everything he had. With nethicite at the core of Bergan’s wrath… with Ashe’s untimely swing-and-miss of her blade in the Stilshrine… with Archades on the horizon and Cid at the head of it all, Balthier had felt like a caged animal foaming at the bars. But seeing Vaan across from him, golden skin wrung pale by his magicks, flaxen hair nearly white as snow, Balthier took a deep breath and let it out. 

“You all right, Vaan?” he queried. Through the steam of the hot springs, Vaan’s half-lidded, dark lashes fluttered his way. It sent a spike of desire through Balthier he had not been prepared for. 

Vaan had smiled at him tiredly. “Gettin there. M’tired.”

Balthier stretched a leg under the water to toe at Vaan’s. “Try not to drown. I’ve had enough emergencies for one day.”

“Even if I did,” Vaan said, eyes closed, “I know you’d save me.”

“Counting on that, are you?”

How Vaan possessed the will to be playful after their day, Balthier would never know, but he slipped beneath the water regardless, disappearing under the veil of its heat completely. 

He should have just let the brat drown. It would have saved him a world of trouble. But Vaan enchanted him with such a madness that had Balthier loving his games.

He damned every god by their name, in alphabetical order, before diving under to prove Vaan’s bloody point. Beneath the hot water, their bare bodies collided, bubbles rising to the surface as Vaan let out what could only be a laugh. More fumbling of wet limbs and blind purchase led to Balthier hoisting Vaan to the surface with a gasp. His arms, hooked beneath Vaan’s, held the boy’s back against his front in a firm lock. 

“Are you going to keep throwing yourself into trouble just so that I’ll save you?” he growled against the shell of Vaan’s ear. He was getting hard, his cock twitching to attention against the curve of Vaan’s buttock nestled firmly against his pelvis. The strongest of urges to lick the hot wet column of Vaan’s throat and claim him for his own in this holy place overcame Balthier, and he dropped Vaan back in the water before he lost himself completely. 

Vaan resurfaced with a gasp, his head floating on the water like an imp that would not leave him at peace. “Every once in a while, yeah. Just to keep you on your toes.”

That moment would become a missed opportunity that would follow Balthier to the ends of Ivalice. Back in that same hot spring, but with only his half of the company this time, Balthier took his hard cock in hand and gave it a few pumps. Instantly, he hissed through his teeth, hips bucking into the friction. Damn. It had been a while. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a moment for this. 

Which made him feel a bit better about his restraint, in a way. If there was barely time for _this_ during their entire plight across Ivalice, how would he possibly have had time to get both himself _and_ Vaan off? Not to mention that if he started he wouldn’t have been able to stop. There had simply been more important matters at hand than getting his rocks off with a hot young blonde thing - which, if one had asked Balthier what his main priorities as a pirate were, he certainly would have put that at the top of his list.

Once all of this was over, Balthier decided he would make up for lost time and lay Vaan into the sheets the first chance he got. He just had to wait until the world forgot his name. 

Hopefully Vaan would not.

For now, though, he could wait on himself no longer, and in the steam of this holy place Balthier came with a shudder and a jolt of his hips that sent water surging around him. 

That night, he tried smoking the herb. The same pinch as before, but this time rolled into a cigarette paper. As he inhaled, eyes closed, he thought of last night’s dream. 

How bizarre. 

Balthier stared down at the lines of his hands, and thought they looked like strange trails in a map leading to places he’d never been before. He closed them into a fist, and when he opened them, he held Ashe’s ring in his palm. A curious little circle, so small, too small for a hume finger. Impossibly small- no, it was shrinking, it had to be. 

Between the gaps of his fingers, Ivalice raged. There was a wedding - or was it a funeral - or was it a fete? Balthier shook his head, closing his grasp again, and when he released, the Dawn Shard filled the space where Ashe’s ring once was. 

Below his hands, Balthier watched the Fates weave and twist and dance. He saw Basch hanging in Nalbina, as though they never came to his rescue, his corpse hung limp by the shackles. He saw Vossler, standing tall and proud as he served Dalmasca on a silver platter for the Empire’s gaping maw. He saw the Espers rise against Ultima in the guts of the Great Crystal to rip out her heart, but it was without light, so much that the void of it swallowed them all. He saw famine and he saw gluttony and when Balthier clenched his fists again, they shook, and he dared not to release them for fear of what he would find.

They didn’t look like his hands anymore. But they were. They had to be. There weren’t any rings on any of his fingers suddenly, but surely these hands had to be his own. 

“Hey, give that back. C’mon. Hand it over!”

There was a voice - Vaan’s voice - but all Balthier could do was stare at his hands, paralyzed. When he opened them, he found crushed flower petals, and something silver and blue arcing into a familiar shape. 

“Aw - Balthier. You crushed them.”

The red petals in his hands curled and burned. Balthier tried to grab at them but the ashes fell through his fingers like sand. All that was left was the pendant, which Vaan snatched in his thief-grip, leaving Balthier with nothing.

“You need to come back inside or they’ll find us.”

Balthier looked up. “You’re not here,” he insisted. “You never were.”

“But you wanted me to be, whether you knew it or not. Right, Balthier?”

“You’re just sunlight,” he screamed, though he did not know why. “That is all you are.”

And then it was just him, and his empty hands, and below them was the sky.

  
  
  
  
  



	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two months have passed on Bur Omisace. Balthier was just getting used to his new life as a Nobody, until a certain Somebody showed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening, Geotic’s [“Bless the Self” album](https://geotic.bandcamp.com/album/bless-the-self) (14 mins) 

Time moved differently on the mountain. Two months felt like both a moment and an eternity as Balthier and Fran kept their heads low and lives simple. Though many days had passed since his visit with the witch doctor, the dreams did not get any less strange for Balthier. He started writing them down in a modest leather-bound journal, though the dreams were difficult to bring forth with ink. He tried, regardless. They ended up mostly being a jumble of nouns and question marks. At times, when he had no means to describe what he saw, he merely scribbled until the page bled through, black and wet.

Were anyone to find such a twisted memoir they would certainly think him as mad as his father. The notion did not escape Balthier, but he slept, and that was enough. 

It was after a particularly lengthy dream which had Fran shaking him awake from at half-past two in the afternoon — fear in her eyes as she told him he did not stir no matter her efforts — that Balthier sought out the witch-doctor. 

Vial in one hand and crutch in the other, he pushed through the half-open flap of the tent, and shoved the herbs in his face.

“You say you don’t even know what’s in this stuff. Have you ever taken it?”

“I take it every night.”

“And do you, too, have dreams unlike anything you could conjure on this conscious plane?”

The old man laughed. “Oh, dear, my boy. I’d forgotten to warn you. Though it’s a trusted aid for a sound sleep, there’s an adjustment period to something such as this. When I first took it, I sleepwalked from Rabanastre halfway to Giza. But after a while, and a few mysterious bruises, I’d never slept better.”

Balthier could only stare. He really must have hit his head on the Bahamut to have forgotten that everything in life had a catch. “I suppose then that I should be grateful I don’t wake up in frozen ditches, croaking like a Gigantoad. How long is _a while_?”

“There is no manual for benevolent mysteries such as this. If you don’t want it, give it back.” 

Hesitating, Balthier’s fist closed, and he slipped it back into his cloak.

The man chuckled. “That’s what I thought. It puts you to sleep, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” Balthier said, “But— The dreams; they’re… so very strange.” He wasn’t typically one at a loss for words, but there was little he could do to describe what worlds his subconscious had recently managed to weave.

“Do they frighten you?”

Balthier had to think on that. Everything about them felt so real; an emotional vibrancy that rivaled nearly any memory he could call his own. He thought of the past two months and what they’ve shown him — Espers and nethicite, family and war, joy and sorrow, and at the core of it all, for some reason, was always Vaan. 

“No,” Balthier decided, closing his eyes to search the visions and seeing sunlight when there’d been only darkness for so long. Without Vaan present, perhaps those dreams would have been frightening. Instead, they teased a curious edge of deranged whimsy that left Balthier more fascinated than wary. “I simply wanted to check in.”

“Wise of you! We wouldn’t want you sleep-thrashing until you rip your skin clean off.”

Halfway out of the tent, Balthier paused. “Has that h-”

“Worry not, worry not! It was just once. Long ago.”

Balthier’s fingers traced the vial in his pocket, and as he stepped out into the holy mountain’s wind, he could only laugh. Fates would have it he spent his years running from the madness of one man into another’s. His life was beginning to shape up to be one very large circle, and he was getting dizzy with the rounds it was making. 

Above him, the ever-present curtain of clouds parted like a cracked geode, briefly washing the mountain in a sliver of gold. Sunshine glazed over the arcs of the tents before fading away as though it had never been there at all. Balthier looked up at the sky and sighed. Why was it always so grey up here?

Wherever they went next, Balthier wanted blue.  
  


He tried without it that night just to see how he would fare. 

It did not end well. Balthier woke at some dark hour with a shout and the ghost of fire crawling up his neck. He ripped the blanket off himself, gasping for air that didn’t reek of ash and shivering as the sweat cooled on skin. Fran hadn’t heard him, which left Balthier even more ill at ease and feeling strangely alone. Before, he swore she could hear down to his very thoughts. He wondered what she dreamt of, if she did at all. He realized he never thought to ask.

Balthier sat in his cot through the night, and waited for morning to come. When it did, he sought to watch the sunrise, but there was only grey. 

It was an unspoken protocol for the able-bodied refugees to volunteer in the day-to-day duties throughout the sanctuary. Balthier, though little help he could be in terms of hunting and fishing, could at least help keep watch over the chocobo pen that afternoon. It wasn’t a tough job. Gurdy did most of the charming as she waved over riders and sent them off, leaving Balthier to wander among the birds and make sure their saddles were secure and feed-bags were full. 

There was some fun in it, at least. Stationed at the entrance of the encampment, he was in a prime spot for eavesdropping all manner of conversations; merchants, travelers, hunters all stopped through on their missions. It was fairly busy. From beneath his hood, Balthier collected tales from far and wide. It kept his mind busy on things that weren’t his exhaustion or the ache in his leg.

He was on the far side of the pen, tending to a Chocobo who had just returned, when a distant voice nearly knocked him off his crutch.

“Hey! Long time no see! What’s happening?”

_Vaan._

Balthier’s nerves seized like a fish speared below the ice, freezing him in place. Faced away from the direction of Vaan’s voice, he stared straight ahead and dared not to breathe. _How had he known where to find him_?

“Back at you, boy. You’re doing supply runs now, eh?” Another man’s voice answered — the merchant. 

“Yeah, just some errands here and there. Nothing too crazy. Everything should be in here that you needed. Oh, there were some Remedy bottles that weren’t up to snuff for display, so he tossed ‘em in there. Said it’s on the house.”

Vaan wasn’t far, but Balthier wasn’t sure he wanted to risk blowing his cover finding out just how much. Instead, he slowly rounded behind the Chocobo, and pretended to busy himself with tending to its saddle. The creature was enough to block most of his face while still allowing him an angle at which to peer past his hood. When he did, he saw the very boy who’d been haunting his thoughts whether he was awake for them or not.

From his vantage point he could spy the whimsical lilt of Vaan’s profile, framed by wispy blond hair. Balthier could not stop himself from drinking in the sight like a starved man. 

“Migelo really has you running about after the wild ride you’ve had in war?”

“It was my idea, actually. Delivering isn’t tough work, plus I owe Migelo everything. And I just… needed to keep myself busy, y’know? I’m trying to get my mind off things.”

Vaan looked well. Not a scratch on him after the Bahamut, it appeared. At least none that he carried with him through the last two months. That was a relief. A well-loved rucksack slung off one of his shoulders with colorful Giza patchwork surrounding the burlap. He was in Dalmascan plainclothes; closed-toed boots that laced up to his knees, his telltale sash, and — Balthier squinted — was that his shirt under Vaan’s vest? 

It definitely was.

Balthier knew that one well. He hadn’t worn it in a while, having bulked out of it after traipsing across Ivalice and slinging Dalmascan brats over his shoulder hither thither and yon. Still, it hung off Vaan more than it should have. Had he lost weight…? 

“Say… you teleported today. No airship this time? Last I saw you and your crew, it was always anchored nearby.”

“Nah. Not anymore. She’s not mine, so I’m keeping her safe in Rabanastre. I’m waiting for her owners to come back.”

“Not gonna take her on a little joyride?”

When Vaan laughed, it sounded hollow. “Trust me, I’ve thought about it. But... it’s just not the same.”

Balthier didn’t miss the way Vaan’s chin dipped low as he spoke, eyes downcast to the ground. His dark lashes fluttered as he closed his eyes for longer than what seemed appropriate. It sounded like there was so much more he wanted to say, but the merchant filled the silence with a chuckle of his own. 

“Can’t say I relate. I’d take her out for a spin at the drop of a hat. She was a beaut, that one.”

“Still is. But I’ve got my own ship to look forward to.”

Balthier’s brows shot upwards in surprise. _His own ship…_?

“Do you! Tell me all about it.”

“Well, there’s not much to say yet. Y’see, it’s kind of a secret.” Couldn’t be much of a secret if he was blabbing it to a merchant, but then again, this was _Vaan_ . Balthier strained to listen over the distant wark of the surrounding Chocobos. “It’s in the works right now. She probably won’t be done for another ten months, at least. But I’m in touch with the engineers taking on the project, and man, she’s gonna be spectacular. Rozarrian origin, ‘cause I want a smaller skystone port. The Dalmasca Assembly Guild is taking on the rest, even though they _never_ do non-commercial projects. She’ll be more compact, kinda like a glider. Forward-thrusts, with extra glossairs in the rear for speed. I don’t need anything clunky. She won’t be big, but she’ll be _fast_. I’m gonna take her everywhere.”

Balthier didn’t realize his heartbeat was in his ears until Vaan was finished, breathless and smiling in the snow-dusted ravine. 

“That sounds like a dream, kid. She got a name?”

“Yeah. _The Galbana_. Like the flower. Well, that’ll be her name when she’s done. Right now it’s something like… DXG745. I dunno.”

Balthier wasn’t sure if he could make out a dewey sheen on Vaan’s neck, perhaps sweat from carrying the weight of the sundries across Rabanastre. Whatever it was from, he wanted to sample it with his tongue, to taste the salt and warmth there before sinking his teeth into that juncture of Vaan’s shoulder, where he imagined it tender enough to make him moan. 

Instead all he had was a face full of Chocobo feathers.

“She sounds great, Vaan. She really does. I’m happy for you. And thank you for dropping this off. Everyone will appreciate it. We’ve not forgotten all you did for us after the attack.”

“I’m glad I could help.” The mountain wind tousled Vaan’s hair as he smiled and, Gods, Balthier ached in places time could not heal. “And I’m glad those days are behind us, now. I’ll be back next month with another box, apparently. Migelo has me on a schedule.”

“That Migelo. A saint, I tell you. We don’t know what we’d do without his donations. Do pass along my thanks to him as well, Vaan.”

“Will do.”

They said their farewells, and as Vaan turned to approach the teleportation crystal, Balthier watched him over the rim of yellow feathers. His skin shimmered before the Crystal’s tangerine glow, and in the light there was no mistaking it: Vaan had grown thin. Before Balthier could make up any reasoning for the hollowness in his cheeks and frailty of his wrists, Vaan raised a hand up to the Crystal, closed his eyes, and like that, he was going, going, gone.

Then Balthier was alone, left to ponder the shape of Vaan’s departure, and if it bore any symmetry with his own. Was this what it felt like?  
  


Balthier wandered back to the tent sometime around dinner with two bowls of piping hot fish stew. Fran was tending to a recently purchased bow, stringing it on the floor.

“Dinner is served,” Balthier announced with a flourish, minding to not dribble it all over the floor. 

Fran turned her head towards Balthier as her hands moved along the bone bow, as though she were playing a harp. “Did you mind your manners around Gurdy today?”

“She drives a tough ship, that one. I can see why she has her stables stationed all over Ivalice; ruthless little thing. Something of a sadist, if you ask me.”

“I always sensed a fire in her eyes,” Fran played along and Balthier smiled for the first time in many, many days.

They ate on the floor in companionable silence; small tin bowls with small tin spoons. The fish was fresher than anything else Balthier had eaten recently, and he relished in the creamy broth. He hadn’t realized just how hungry he was. The sleepless night and day it birthed left him gutted, though not in a way food could fill.

“Though something of interest did happen,” Balthier said after a while. “I saw Vaan.”

Fran’s brows rose. She actually paused, spoon mid-way to her mouth. “Vaan?”

“Yes. Well - _I_ saw _him_. He didn’t see me. You could imagine my surprise when I was brushing down a chocobo only to hear his voice not fifty yards away. Dropping off a sundries delivery for the camp, it would appear.”

“You did not think to speak with him?”

Blinking, Balthier waited a beat. “I- No. Why would I?”

“Things like that do not happen by chance, Balthier.”

He wanted to groan. This was not what he needed. “And why not?” he bit back petulantly. “Why can’t things just be bloody _coincidence_? Must everything be up to the Fates? I thought we rather took care of that at the Pharos.”

Fran chewed her food, allowing a silence to pass between them as Balthier caught a breath he wasn’t aware he needed. The look she gave him said all but, _Are you quite finished?_

“Ashe took hold of hers,” Fran said instead. “We are still subject to their wills.”

Balthier didn’t want her to be right, but it was undeniably remarkable; out of all the places in Ivalice, Vaan happened to show up to where he was, in the exact moment where he’d be near, wearing his clothes and looking slight. Was that his chance at something that he chose to squander?

“What would you have done?” he asked.

“I cannot say. Vaan was not meant for me.”

Balthier nearly choked on his food. “And- You’re implying-”

“Do you believe he is not?”

Momentarily stunned, Balthier stared at his partner. She didn’t seem cross with him - oh, he knew that voice well enough - but when he caught her gaze she did not let it go so easily. “The Fates writ our tale long before it began,” she continued. “Meeting Vaan in the treasury was no happenstance.”

“I’m aware of that,” Balthier countered. 

“Nor was your saving of him.”

“Obviously.”

“Twice.”

“All right, all right,” Balthier griped. “I’m not denying our run-in with him, or anyone else in our rabble, was ever a coincidence. Fate had long-cast our roles without even granting us the option of an audition.”

“Would you rather have relinquished your role, Leading Man?”

“I’d never stopped to wonder. As soon as nethicite reared its ugly head, I knew I was meant to be there.” He knew he had been meant to finish it all off. He knew he was meant to be the one to cushion Bahamut’s fall. “I was just hoping for a brief reprieve from the role of Fate’s favorite jester.”

Fran scraped at the edge of her bowl, collecting any last morsels from the stew. Suddenly, Balthier wasn’t hungry anymore. He could only think of Vaan, and why he looked as though he hadn’t had a good meal in two months.

“Vaan was never a coincidence. You would do well to accept he never will be. Why did you hesitate?”

Fran’s words were like arrows to the chest. He stumbled to find a shred of his dignity. “I did not realize you were so keen on marrying me off, Fran. Since when were you so fond of him?”

“I am fond of _you_ , Balthier. And I only wish for your happiness. At times, I wonder why you do not.” 

Balthier stared at the floor, counting the frayed edges of the tattered rug there. How many bare, tired feet had this tent seen? And why was he sitting here adding to it, instead of pressing Vaan into some cushy inn bed and making a point to not leave it for a solid week? Surely Vaan could keep a secret-

 _No_. He couldn’t.

“Because that damn boy can’t keep that comely mouth of his shut,” Balthier said, head shooting up as the realization coursed through his veins. “If he were to know we’re alive, our chance at freedom would be at risk.”

“He does not choose his words well,” Fran agreed, “but he would not hurt us in that way, surely.”

“Not out of malevolence, no. But- Today, for instance, he said something he had meant to keep to himself. He spoke of a ship of his own, ready in about a year’s time. Rozarrian skystone port. Rear glossairs. Classified blueprints, classified techs, classified sponsors. The eager chit dropped it all onto some unsuspecting merchant, down to its model number.” 

Fran’s half-ear gave a twitch of interest. It was apparent she missed getting her hands dirty in the guts of a good ship, learning its parts, discerning its temperament. “It does not surprise me. Long has he yearned for wings of his own. Let us be grateful he is not toying with ours.”

“No. He wouldn’t; I know he wouldn’t. And he confirmed it today before my very eyes.” Despite his boyish beauty and rosy-cheeked charm in the cold ravine, Balthier couldn’t shake that one damn thing. “He… He looked thinner, Fran.”

So caught up in his thoughts, he nearly jumped when Fran placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Vaan will be well. It is you for whom I worry.”

Balthier furrowed his brow. “I need no coddling.”

“I think you do,” Fran countered when he bristled, “but it is not mine to give. Perhaps in a year’s time, Vaan will still have eyes for you. But be quick. The sky is a temptress, and soon, Vaan a bachelor with wings of his own.”

Later, Balthier stepped out of the tent to toke; it had become his preferred method of taking the herb over the tea, if only to have something to do with his hands. Fran disliked the smell, so he had taken his nightly routine outside. The midnight wind was quick to carry it off as Balthier exhaled. 

_Finally._ A clear night.

Stars stretched across the obsidian sky, utterly brilliant in their vast glory. He could not help the smile that came to his face as he looked upon such splendor. One by one, he identified his old friends. Antares, Vega, Arcturus, Betelgeuse, as though they were bullets lodged in the sky from his treasured guns. 

The last time he’d taken a gander at the stars like this had been with the very boy Fate kept dangling before him like a lure. He wondered why… Why was it always Vaan, of all people? 

Who would it have been, if not for Vaan? 

The script had been written before Ffamran ever even walked the earth, of that Balthier was certain. Long was Venat a heretic. Long did the Occuria, in turn, anticipate Their ploy. Was his story written in a history as old as the very stars? 

He wasn’t sure if he liked that idea. But he couldn’t be too angry. If not for Fate, he would not have met Fran. He would not have taken to the sky with candor and hunger. He would not have thought to steal the destined nethicite moonlighting as a simple treasure. 

He would not have found Vaan there instead.

Balthier wondered which one of Them gave the Dynast-King his name. Which one desired a renaissance of mankind so deeply that they made a catalyst for it, terrible and tangible enough to hold? Which one of Them forged that monolith on Naldoa’s Jagd? Which one of Them bestowed upon Humes a blade for which to make it their own?

Were they watching him now? Balthier didn’t doubt it. Those old things had nothing better to do now. Nethicite had no more use in this realm; Reddas had made sure of that when Vaan and Ashe, swords in hand, could not pursue the burst of the Sun Cryst’s mist and destroy it themselves. What else was there to do than play around with the lives of those that took it away?

The stars brought with them so many questions, but it had been so long since he’d properly looked upon them; he didn’t mind their vastness. It was humbling to remind himself how utterly small he was, after spending so much time playing the role of something so big. 

So engrossed in the view, Balthier didn’t realize how much he had smoked until the paper burned at his fingertips. With one final look at the sky, he headed back inside.

Fran was stringing her bow with mesmerizing orbits of sinew and bone when he came back. At the flap of the tent, Balthier paused to admire her. To have such endless patience to put up with him was, he realized then, also no mere coincidence.

She had followed him into the belly of the gods, she had followed him into the Bahamut, she had followed him to this grey holy mountain, and Balthier had no doubt she would follow him next; to wherever it was blue. 

Vaan’s ship ended up being a mix of both; silver against a blue sky. It was a beautiful conglomeration of all nations. The skystone port was of Rozarrian origin, the cockpit a design of Dalmascan engineering, and the thrusters manufactured in Archades. She was as he’d said - light and compact, but oh, she really _was_ a fast little thing. Vaan had spared no expense on the heart of Her - a skystone powerful enough to counter Jagd soil, doubtlessly funded by The Queen. With no holds barred now, all of Ivalice was for his taking.

He looked regal in the cockpit, the late-day sun streaming through the windglass to lacquer his hair in gold. As he lowered his ship to the sands, it landed with such a softness that Balthier wasn’t even sure they were finished until he heard the telltale sink of the anchor.

He whistled, impressed. “She’s graceful.”

“C’mon,” Vaan said, grabbing his hand, “or we’ll miss it.”

The Urutan-Yensa Sandsea at sunset was a magnificent sight. As the last dregs of the day stretched across the shifting sands, the world turned pink from gold. Balthier was taken by the sight, leaning off the edge of a forgotten oil rig. They’d come so far since that day he’d spied Vaan at the lip of the shore, marveling at its transcendence and learning what it felt to be small. 

“You ready?” Vaan asked, and when Balthier turned to face him he was naked, looking everything like a deity. His smooth, bronze skin flushed with the rose-gold of early dusk. Without waiting for an answer, Vaan rushed past him, his feet soundless on the rig. Balthier could only watch, taken by his beauty as he vaulted over the railing and dove into the gilded waves.

Beneath his hands, the railing turned to dust. With nothing on which to grab purchase, Balthier tumbled after Vaan, and when he touched the sand it cushioned him in silks - and he was naked, skin so, so hot and-

“Gods, Balthier, you’re so thick.”

Above him, Vaan bounced on his cock in evident bliss, bracing his hands on Balthier’s chest and pinning him to the stone beneath. Every pull of that tight heat over his shaft made Balthier gasp, until he was open-mouthed and begging for things he never knew were possible to have. 

They were covered in oil that glistened in the firelight of the tomb and slicked them both in amber. Belias had stood here for seven centuries, though he belonged to Basch now, and no one was left to stand at the door of the Dynast King. Balthier and Vaan found this hollow altar suitable enough to consummate the apex of their hedonistic glory, writhing against each other in euphoria.

“So good, so big. Oh, it’s _so good_ ,” Vaan choked, leaning down to loll his tongue into Balthier’s open mouth. He tasted like gunpowder, bitter and tangy. No- maybe it was madhu, sticky and sweet. Another lick, another, and another, until Balthier could not remember even what anything tasted like other than Vaan’s mouth and all the things tumbling forth from it. _Fuck, yes, keep pushing back into me — like that, fuck me like that. You feel so perfect. Balthier, Balthier, Balthier!_

His body trembled as Vaan’s tight heat rode him with reckless abandon. The air was cloying and filled with their sex, and Balthier could not tell where Vaan ended and he began. They were one, beneath the rain, surrounded by torchlight within the tomb. Raithwall was rolling in his grave not too far from them, Balthier wagered, and when they broke for air he was laughing until he came.

A moan stuttered forth that Vaan mirrored, and he was shooting his load hard and fast in that tight channel. Only it didn’t stop. He kept coming and coming, the orgasm wracking his body like a thunder spell as he filled Vaan to the brim with his seed. He shouted Vaan’s name and it echoed in the tomb until it grew to something great; a raucous chorus that rivaled any tale of epicurean wonder. 

Desperately he held onto Vaan, fingers digging into his hips, trying to find purchase on his slippery skin. O, Vaan was divine, his hard cock bouncing between oil-slicked thighs until he cried out, spraying his seed in excess all over Balthier’s chest. By the time Vaan was done, Balthier was covered in his essence. He wanted so badly to taste it.

He reached to swipe a sample with his finger, but the rain washed it away before he could. Above him, Vaan smiled. It was pouring around them in the tomb, a deluge that matted Balthier’s hair down and weighed his lashes but did naught to Vaan, perfectly dry. When he touched Balthier’s face, his fingers wore his rings.

“You can stop crying, Balthier. I know you miss me. But it’s too cold here.”

He watched Vaan float up into the waiting maw of his ship, where it devoured him like something strangely maternal. When he called out Vaan’s name, his only answer was the blasting wake of the glossair rings' mighty ascent into the void. And then he was going, going, gone. 

A single ember floated down from the smoke onto his chest, innocent and small as a glowbug. Like flint to stone, his oiled body ignited into a white-hot blaze - burning, burning, burning until it carved a star in the sky, somewhere not from Betelgeuse; downstage right. 

Balthier woke to wet eyes. 

The veiled sun hung higher in the sky when Balthier looked out at the last grey day he ever wanted to see. Turning his gaze down to the vial in his palm, he pondered the madness it carried. He could throw it off the mountain, leave it to tumble to the waves of the Naldoan below, let it sink to the depths of its darkness. It would be so easy. But teasing the line of the mountain’s snowy precipice, Balthier hesitated. 

_Pain of the body and of the mind. I have something for that, oh, I have something for that._

The witch-doctor hadn’t been far off. His leg ached less terribly now, and sleep had found him again. But at what cost? Vaan taunted his dreams every night. But when he didn’t, it was worse. Far worse. 

At the cliff’s edge, his cloak billowed violently in the wind like a tattered war flag. 

“Where do you wish to go?” Fran asked beside him, tying the lip of her rucksack with a knot that spoke a finality. 

“Where there’s sky,” Balthier answered, slipping the vial back in his cloak. “Where there’s sun.” Somewhere blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when this was going to be one chapter? And then two? And now it's three? I do. I owe most of this to Besin.


End file.
